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July 9, 2015 – Faberge House.

July 8, 2019 – St. Petersburg Downtown We have officially completed the Trans-Siberian portion of our journey, as Moscow is the end of the Railway. The Sapsan train from Moscow to St. Petersburg is a very different experience.  Averaging 200 kph, it takes 3.5-4 hours of very smooth and quiet travel, and there you are. 

Moscow Day Two July 6, 2019 Another beautiful morning dawns, which is great as it’s Kremlin Day!  After a leisurely breakfast, we take the bus down to the entrance to Red Square, and then stroll down along the beautiful grounds in front to the spot where we are to meet our guide, who is, of

Moscow Day One July 4-5, 2019 Morning dawns for the last time on our Trans-Siberian trip.  We’re not done with trains, but Moscow is the official ‘end of the line’ for the Trans-Siberian.  And we’re in Europe now, and it’s not raining!  That might be a coincidence, but also maybe not…  The wild country is

Yekaterinburg July 1-3, 2019 The train trip from Novosibirsk to Yekaterinburg is the second-longest of the trip at 18 hours, but it’s an overnight trip so there is lots of time for rubber-necking at the start and end of the trip, plus another excellent night’s sleep on a hard 18″ bed in a rocking, rolling

Novosibirsk June 28-30, 2019 Novosibirsk is a working-people’s city.  We’re not expecting any great crush of tourists or tourist attractions, but it’s a good way to break up the VERY long train leg between Irkutsk and Yekaterinburg.  That’s a 2-day run, and there are 3 cities to choose from if you want to break up

Krasnoyarsk June 25-27, 2019 Remember this? It is the ‘hot water’ on the train that everyone seeks for their noodles and instant coffee/tea. The trip from Irkutsk to Krasnoyarsk is a comfortable leg, leaving Irkutsk in the early evening and arriving at Krasnoyarsk in mid-afternoon of the following day.  The only stressful part was getting

Lake Baikal June 24, 2019 Lake Baikal is definitely an adventure all by itself.  It’s the largest freshwater lake by volume in the world, containing 22–23% of the world’s fresh surface water. It contains more water than the North American Great Lakes combined. With a maximum depth of 1,642 m (5,387 ft), Baikal is the world’s deepest,

Irkutsk June 21-23, 2019 The train trip from Ulan Ude to Irkutsk is the shortest leg in our journey, and it’s all during the daytime (mid-morning to mid-afternoon), so we decided to go second-class as we wouldn’t be sleeping in the compartment.  Our second-class compartment turned out to be identical to our previous first-class compartment,

Ulan-Ude June 19-20, 2019 Ulan-Ude (ooh-LAN ooh-DAY) is our third city in the Russian Far East, and this one is special.  This is the centre of the last remnant of the Mongols, they of Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde, THOSE Mongols.  They once held what was probably the largest empire in the history of